Southwestern Archaeology Special Interest Group (SASIG)
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Wednesday April 12, 2000
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NEW MEXICO
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/1news04-11-00.htm In pre-historic America, there were two types of dogs, large hunting companions and smaller dogs that chased rats from graineries. In the Southwest, dogs were ceremonially buried with humans. But that practice began dying out around A.D. 1300, when stress on the human population in the Four Corners Region gave the dog a new role - dinner. When they started becoming dinner, they stopped being ritual objects.
From: David A. Phillips, Jr. My response to Steve Lekson's new book, Chaco Meridian, can be found at . The web site is the long version of my SAA poster presentation. Within the next two weeks, I hope to add Steve Lekson's counter-response. Dave Phillips, SWCA, Inc., Albuquerque, NM.
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/5653news04-12-00.htm Thomas A. Livesay announced his resignation Tuesday as executive director of the Museum of New Mexico after 14 years at the helm of the Santa Fe-based museum system. The museum was successful this week in hiring a new director to lead the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology. Duane Anderson, director of the Indian Arts Research Center at the School of American Research, has agreed to take the position. The museum also has a new director of state monuments, Michael Taylor, who took over after A. Robert Baca retired at the end of March after 26 years of service with the state of New Mexico.
COLORADO
http://www.foxsports.com:80/wires/pages/36/spt132136.sml The Ute Indians were forced out of the Yampa River Valley in 1881 and relocated to Utah as Europeans expanded westward. The north-central Colorado area is sacred to the Ute Indian Tribe.
UTAH
http://www.sltrib.com:80/04112000/utah/40374.htm The College of Eastern Utah's Museum in downtown Price is commemorating the 100 th anniversary of the Scofield Mine disaster, the worst industrial accident in Utah history. The exhibit will move to Scofield just before May 1 commemoration services.
ARIZONA
A new opportunity is posted at: . All jobs are posted at .
http://news.excite.com:80/news/uw/000410/entertainment-film-290 Spitz searched the photo archives of the Arizona State Museum for additional documentation of the Cly family, but none was found.
CALIFORNIA
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2000/apr/10/510106689.html A seasonal resort has won approval to be located at entrance road leading to California's most popular ghost town. Bodie peaked in the 1870s, gaining a reputation as a rugged mining town. It has been kept in a state of arrested decay by the state park system.
http://www.sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/04/10/MN77344.DTL The Table Mountain Indians have transplanted to their rancheria a blockhouse from Fort Miller, the 19th century Army post. The soldiers enslaved Indians in the 1800s and forced them to build the fort, according to historical records. Here on the reservation, having the actual blood-stained remnants of their ancestors' allegorical prison brings no small satisfaction.
http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/000412AzwesttribesIdentity.html The Verona Band was assigned its name from a railroad station built for a Hearst estate where Indians worked, crossing the footbridge to usher in visitors from San Francisco. The estate was also where anthropologist A.L. Kroeber found that tribe members, sometimes called Costanoan, spoke Spanish and had lost much of their cultural behavior. "The Costanoan group is extinct so far as all practical purposes are concerned," Kroeber wrote in 1925.
CYBERIA
http://www.seattletimes.com/news/local/html98/grav12e_20000412.html A private Indian cemetery. It is here where the grave robbers struck. Working with a backhoe, someone dug more than 20 graves and stole the contents. There is an underground market for Native American skulls and large bones. The remains are sold to private collectors, although it is less common in the Northwest than in other parts of the country. The law is not tough enough, said de los Angeles, who said he plans to work on strengthening policies and regulations regarding desecration of Indian grave sites.
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/102/world/Digging_to_resume_at_site_of_S:.shtml For the first time in seven years, forensic anthropologists will resume digging in El Salvador. A team led by a group of Argentinian forensic scientists plan to arrive Wednesday in El Mozote to begin preliminary work.
http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=041100&ID=s789908&cat=section.Inland_Northwest According to Clyde Snow, the most unsavory location his work ever took him to was a muddy graveyard in San Vicente, Bolivia. Prompted by rumors he heard while in Argentina, Snow went to Bolivia in 1991 to locate and identify the bodies of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Snow and his partner, Dan Buck, managed to unearth a skeleton turned out to be a German named Gustav Zimmer.
http://www.the-journal.co.uk/cfm/newsstory.cfm?StoryId=177093 A group of archaeologists are braving freezing conditions dressed only in animal skins as they spend a fortnight lost in the stone age. The 13 researchers are attempting to recreate an Anglo-Saxon village in two weeks without using any modern technology. They are armed only with their initiative and the crude tools that would have been available to our prehistoric ancestors. After only one day, the group has already formed a pseudo-community according to their different skills with some digging, one person making leather shoes and the four female members of the team assuming traditional roles. [ Ed note - traditional roles? ]
http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20000411_2173.html According to Herodotus, the Persian army of Cambysesan set out from Thebes to destroy the temple of Amun at the Siwa oasis near Libya. The army stopped at two desert oases before disappearing without a trace, baffling archaeologists ever since. Two years ago Egyptian geologists came across metal parts, arrowheads, daggers, knives and human remains. Archaeologists head into the desert next month to try to solve the mystery.
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